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A former asylum seeker living in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, has asked the UK government to send him back to Somalia, saying he no longer feels safe living in Britain.
Fifty-year-old Yusuf Ali Hamud came to the UK about 20 years ago to seek asylum. After being convicted of a serious assault, he lost his right to work. He now says he has been repeatedly asking the Home Office for the past five months to deport him to Somalia but claims his requests are being ignored.
“The country is not safe,” he told Sky News, referring to the UK. “But my country, Somalia, now, I’m safe. I want to go back.”
Hamud said he does not understand why he is being kept in the UK when he has no refugee status and cannot work. “If I don’t have the right to work, why am I here?” he said. “I didn’t come here to eat and sleep like a baby. I’d rather go back to my own country.”
Somalia has faced decades of civil conflict and instability since 1991, yet Hamud insists that he would prefer to return there than continue living in Britain without a future.
The Home Office said it could not comment on individual cases but stressed that it works to remove foreign nationals who have committed serious crimes, either through forced deportations or voluntary returns. Under new plans, the government has said that foreign criminals will be deported immediately after sentencing, though this has not yet come into effect.
Figures show that at the end of 2024, there were 19,244 foreign offenders in the UK awaiting deportation, a rise compared with previous years.
In Nuneaton, the number of asylum seekers has grown significantly. Only a few years ago, there were less than ten in the town. By June this year, that number had increased to 247. With 19 asylum seekers for every 10,000 residents, Nuneaton now ranks 87th in the country in terms of asylum seeker concentration.
The rise has made the town a flashpoint for anti-migrant tension. Recently, two Afghan asylum seekers were accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl, which fueled unrest and sparked anger among some residents.
During a Sky News interview with Zahin, a 32-year-old local businessman, hostility spilled into the open. Zahin, who moved to Nuneaton from Malawi when he was six, was speaking about life in the town when a group of women interrupted.
They shouted abuse, accused migrants of crimes, and swore at the cameras. One of the women, who was holding a pint of lager, shouted: “That’s the issue with having you in our country, you’re raping our kids.” Children stood nearby as the confrontation unfolded.
Zahin tried to respond calmly and asked the women: “What are you teaching those kids?” He later explained that he felt targeted because the women assumed he was Muslim. “For them to accuse us of a crime, that’s unfair, that is unjust,” he said.
Despite the hostility, Zahin expressed his love for Nuneaton and his wish to continue living there peacefully. “I love this town,” he said.
The tensions in Nuneaton reflect a wider national debate over immigration, asylum, and deportation. For people like Yusuf Ali Hamud, the situation is even more complicated. Stripped of his ability to work, and with no refugee status, he feels trapped in a country where he believes he no longer belongs. His plea to be sent back to Somalia underlines both his personal frustration and the broader struggles surrounding asylum and immigration policy in the UK.